General Chat

It has long been the practice of food manufacturers and washing powder producers to reduce the weight of product within their packaging whilst leaving the price unaltered as a means of sneaking a surreptitious price rise. It now looks as if tobacco product manufacturers are doing the same.

For the past few weeks the brand that I smoke has included a card within the 20 cigarette pack explaining that they would shortly be changing the colour of the logo on the pack from gold to blue. Being a "Budget" brand the packaging has its price displayed on it. Yesterday the new blue logo packs were on sale at my local shop for the first time and the price shown on them was identical to that on the gold logo pack that I had bought earlier last week. It was only when I opened the new pack that I discovered that it contained 19 rather than the usual 20 cigarettes. Close inspection of the packaging revealed that on one side only "19" was printed in silver on a white background thus making it difficult to see. No other indication of the packs contents appeared anywhere. There had been no mention of an intended reduction in the packs contents on the aforementioned proposed colour change card.

I realise that prices do go up and that manufacturers do need to make a profit but I do wish that they would be honest about the price increases they make rather than try to hide them.

The price increase won't make me spend more money and it might even result in me smoking less but it will certainly make me consider changing the brand that I smoke.

Has anyone had similar experiences and what is your view of what I see as a sneaky practice?

I noticed that with a brand I used to smoke their loss as I changed to another brand and I have also noticed that other things have reduced in size - especially various well known biscuits and confectionery items - crafty sods ;-)

I also think they are not packing the tobacco as tightly as they used to. A ciggie burns much more quickly these days

Tampax are doing the same (Don't try and smoke one) they used to come in packs of 40, over the years they have slowly been reduced and now, for a similar price, we get 30 :-0

Don't try and smoke one :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

The tobacco barons get plenty of profit but it is the Tax Man who takes the biggest chunk.

In early seventies the income tax on the tobacco leaf had to be paid to the Customs 24 hours before leaf went into production.

I can tell you that a cheque for one day's production (small factory and remember there were very many factories then in UK) was around £250,000. Wonder what that is worth in today's money?

Conversely ................

Wow Chris, that's a lot of cash :-0

MC, are we expected to read your mind :-S

I think they're giving "prizes" in the packs now,though.

Didn't Gins get a whistle the other day???


Moxx

My mum hasn't bought cigs in this country for years....dad goes over to France/Belguim every 3 months and brings back 3000...have to get HID to go over with him next time....I didn't realise how much they cost here now as I don't pay for them

This is also why the POUND shops appear to have such great offers.

The 'named' goods they sell are more often than not a smaller than normal size that you would buy at a regular supermarket. So the poor unsuspecting public think they are getting a bargain, when in fact they are being ripped off.

OH has a friend in work whose dad is a truck driver and he gets his baccie from him every 2 months... Much cheaper.

Yesterday in Tesco picked up butternut squash, on each a large red sticker £1 for one minute thought that's good value I will get largest, then saw in small words a kg.

Carol

I'ts quite disgraceful putting 19 cigs in pack (lucky I don't smoke) but if you look in your cupboards most will be much smaller quantities, I find the problem when baking eg recipe 15 biscuits 1 tin of condensed milk etc don't have weight for biscs and milk not same quantity so have to juggle around to try and get recipe correct believe me have had many mistakes :-S

Comparing the price of milk is confusing as well. Some similar sized packs are 2L some 4 pints and they don't all have both the imperial/metric sizes on so comparing one shop with another is not easy.

Mayonnaise when bought in squeeze bottle has contents as say 400 ml...

A jar of same mayonnaise will have its contents as 380gms or some such.. and I don't know much about standing in the supermarket and converting mls to gms and vice versa to work out which one is the cheapest.

It's enough to make me take up smoking again.. packs of 19 doesn't even sound right.

You can have 10, 20 etc or half dozen, dozen and no one ever has a baker's dozen... but 19 ciggies in a packet .. what do you call that? Packet of daylight robbery. :-)

Persie, some supermarkets work it out for you - giving the price per gm of different sizes, which does help.

I seem to remember that cigarettes sold in machines were always less than twenty. Think that was to bring the price down to something the machines could handle.

And what about special offer packs of 2 or more where it is cheaper to buy the individual items!

Shopping used to be so simple - now you need a Maths degree and eyes like a hawk.

The thing with the squeezy mayo is.........you cant get the last 100ml out of the buddy bottle!


You can get packs of 25 fags now. But Mo is right, I did get a free whistling fag last week!

When buying items with several different sizes of the same thing (like mayonnaise) I use the info on the shelf label where it says, in tiny writing, the price per 100grams. I then buy the best value one and it isn't always the largest.

What does irritate me is when things like multipacks of crisps sometimes have price per 100grams and sometimes price per item.

One that always amuses me in my local supermarket is Soothers, they sell a packet of 3 packs of 10 sweets for £1.37 and a single pack of 10 sweets for 45p :-S

It takes me a lot longer to do the shopping these days not only because of age/ inability to move fast but also have to scrutinise a lot of the "bargains" it is worth it In the end though because I can stay within my budget :-D

What annoys me is seeing big signs saying something is half price, then in small print it says if you buy one at full price, the 2nd one is half price.
Haven´t been caught yet, but almost. :-0